AMERICA.

Taihape Daily Times, 20 August 1918, Page 5

AMERICA.

MANUFACTURE OF PLEASURE MOTOR CARS. TO BE CURTAILED AND FINALLY STOPPED. Received 9.20 a.m. NEW YORK, August 19. The War Industries Board is considering a proposition to immediately curtail, jtheyntanufacture of pleasure automobiles by 75 per cent. The Board has*.-also not to allow their manufacture after January. FRENCH MISSION TO AUSTRALIA NOT TO BE DROPPED. Received 9.20 a.m. SAN FRANCISCO, August 19. The French Government, believing the object of the Metin Mission to Australia to be too important to be dropped, has decided to appoint a civilian as the new head of the Mission, which remains here until October, pending his arrival from France. M, Metin’s body will be sent to France for burial. The United States Government is despatching a warship to convoy it across the Atlantic. METIN'S SUCCESSOR APPOINTED, Received 11.55 a.m'. NEW YORK, August 19. M. Henri Bergson, a distinguished philosopher, has been appointed to succeed M. Metin as a member of the French Australian Mission. AMERICAN SOCIALISTS’ PROG’RAM M E. A POLICY OF NEGATIVES. Received 11.55 a.m. NEW YORK, August 19. The National Executive of American Socialists has,issued a programme d’ealing with post-bellum questions. It recommends no annexations, no punitive indemnities, and no economic nationalism, but only fraternity of labour. TRAITORS CONVICTED, NEW YORK, August 18. At Chicago, one hundred members of the Workers of the World were found . guilty of obstructing the nation’s war activities, and of violation of the Espionage Act. The trial lasted four, months. * The number of defendants was the largest in the history of American jurisprudence. William D. Haywood is among the defendants, HUN TREATMENT OF PRISONERS Received 9.10 a.m. LONDON, August 19. Repatriated soldiers from Holland have arrived in London. Some state they were compelled to unload ammunition from a, burning train close to the front, and forty comrades were killed. AMERICAN PRISONERS' DIABOLICAL TREATMENT. NEW YORK, August 18. The “World’s” correspondent at 01denzaal, cu the Dutch-German frontier, interviewed Sergeant Schwarts Leigh, who deserted from the 74th "Pomeranian Regiment, after serving as a guard at prison camps. He says the Germans, acting on headquarters’ authority, arc outdoing their own record of cruelty towards American prisoners. They,have adopted a policy of “the fewer Americans who return home, the better for us,” applying socalled “sharp regime” and “preventive punishment,’ ’whereby Americans are punished before committing offences and sent to Kuestrin reprisal camp, where they are compelled to work 18 or 20 hours daily. The guards are in- ! structed to shoot if the prisoners sit down, and crush fheir skulls with bayonets if they collapsed. Food consists of dirty thin soup and bread; the latter is missing thrice weekly, and those making complaints are punished by being made to stand motionless in the sun for three daJ’ST Americans are compelled to fill fish ponds, using only a water glass. One month’s solitary confinement is imposed for failure to fill the pond. Americans are conveyed in chains to Russia and exhibited, while a lecturer explains that the Germans are victorious. On one occasion an American broke the handcuffs and assaulted the lecturer. The prisoner was shot. Negroes are especially cruelly treated. They are flogged mercilessly for the slightest offence. Geman-American prisoners are treated kindly for the purpose of trying to organise a bri-' gade to fight for Germany, but Ger-man-Americans refuse to eat extra bread rations when other American prisoners ar 0 not supplied. At railway stations the police invite the population to insult and spit on Americans, saying the war-prolongers are here.